


but i thought you were gone

by thasmins



Series: Inseparable [1]
Category: Class (TV 2016), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Other, Panic Attacks, Teacher Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-24 23:46:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thasmins/pseuds/thasmins
Summary: When Yaz was 14, she and her mum packed two suitcases and moved to Shoreditch...





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dutiesofcare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutiesofcare/gifts).



> based on this [tweet](https://twitter.com/pottskhan/status/1032282853923536896)  
> i made a LONG time ago.
> 
> god, this fic is incredibly different from the usual fics i do, obviously. first of all, i'm well aware it's over over 2k+ and you've only had one chapter. this fic is packed with angst!!!! riperoni
> 
> anyways, i've been thinking about this fic since before s11 started, and so now that i'm in holiday break, why not do this????? yeah, happy holidays! this is my gift to you guys, especially to bea, who deadass asked if she could write this but i turned her down bc i'm a selfish twat who wanted to write this :)
> 
> (there's thasmin here but not as much as the main relationship here, which is yaz and clara's friendship that we deserve!)

When Yaz was 14, she and her mum packed two suitcases and moved to Shoreditch after a legal separation was ensued.

Yaz was relieved. She wasn’t sure she was going to last much longer in Sheffield, let alone walk inside her school. The very air she breathed choked her. Her head drooped in fear of meeting people’s eyes. If she wasn’t being slammed into a locker by a white boy, racist insults bombarded her, and she was forced to live with the psychological wounds.

She blamed herself for the longest time. _Was_ still blaming herself for it. For Izzy Flint, who kissed her on the top of the school building on one fateful day, delivered the blow that flipped her world in such a disastrous ways.

Izzy Flint, who she knew was the daughter of a powerful, homophobic politician, was her damnation.

It was her fault she befriended Izzy when she first moved. It was her fault that Izzy fell for her. It was her fault that Izzy got brave. It was her fault Izzy had changed.

Izzy argued that she kissed back. Which she never did. But it was a white girl against a brown girl, so what did it matter?

And her own father believed it. He believed in anything really.

There were a series of slaps and several minutes of homophobic shouting spat towards her that day.

Her mother came home that day ripping her off her dad’s frighteningly strong hands and immediately filed the legal separation papers the day after.

It all happened in two weeks time. In the time waiting to to be approved, her mother refused to see to her father, but she still went to school. Unlike her classmates and the higher ups, her teachers were if nothing but supportive and contending. She sat with them in the teacher’s lounge during lunches, talking to her about how horrifying the power Izzy’s father had.

They’re gone the minute her parents’ legal separation was ratified, and hours later, they’ve arrived at Shoreditch with nothing but two suitcases loaded with clothes and essentials.

 

* * *

 

“We’re going to stay at a friend’s until I can find a house and a stable job,” she remembers her mum saying, “and she just became a teacher! You’ll love her.”

The cab stopped abruptly afterwards, and Yaz watched as her mum fished out a generous wad of cash to the driver. The driver’s forehead creased.

“Oh, you should take the change,” her mum offered generously. “You’ve been wonderful for the past two hours.”

Nodding, the driver hesitantly took the money and mumbled thanks as her mum stepped off the cab. Yaz followed obediently and took the liberty of tugging one suitcase after her mum hefted them out of the trunk.

Yaz squinted her eyes. The brightness of the morning blue sky greeted her a little too kindly. Her neck stayed craned up when she gazed at the flat complex in front of them. Although not as impressive as Park Hill, she already felt much safer knowing she’d come home to a place where her father wouldn’t terrorise her.

“Yaz!” her mum called, and she realised she hadn’t seen her walking towards the entrance.

 

* * *

 

 

When the door swung open, she didn’t know what to expect.

It was woman in her 30s, light brunette hair frizzing and tangled like a nest of twigs from tossing over in bed, probably. Another noticeable thing—she was also short, just a couple centimetres shorter than Yaz even.

But she had a wonderful grin when she looked at her mum.

“Najia!” she greeted, throwing her hands over the older woman.

Yaz glanced, watching as the woman broke her death-gripping hold on her mum. Her eyes looked up to the teenage girl, grinning again, and it was so stupidly adorable that Yaz couldn’t stay intimidated by this woman.

“Oh Gods, is that really you, Yaz?”

She could only shrug. Words had failed her as usual.

“She’s taller now, yes,” her mum interjected for her.

The woman had the most soothing chuckle ever. Her dimples showed, and her eyebrows raised as her brown eyes squinted.

“I last saw you when you were four, Yaz,” she explained. “I’m Clara, and I’m kinda hurt your mother doesn’t tell stories about me to you.”

The bulb in Yaz’s mind lit up brightly at the mention of her name.

She shook her head immediately. “I-I know who you are. Mum—she lost her photos with you a long time ago.”

Clara’s grimace only worsened. _Yay, way to lighten the mood, Yaz._ “Oh, Najia, you could’ve just asked so I could print more copies!”

“I didn’t have time to ask,” she simply replied.

With the banter quickly halting, Clara gasped. “Stars, you’ve been out for so long! Forgive me, please do come in!”

Yaz nodded, grabbing the latch of the suitcase in front of her, but not before she noticed Clara’s fingers attempting to lace themselves on it as well.

Yaz had never been more flustered in her life. Not even Izzy Flint could have this effect on her.

“I can handle this, Yaz,” Clara insisted. “You should get some sleep on a proper bed instead. I know how tiring buses can get.”

She lifted the suitcase into the flat with no effort. It left Yaz in such a daze, swearing to herself to never forget such a moment.

 

* * *

 

Once they’ve settled down, Yaz had promptly tossed herself in checkered pyjamas and laid herself on the inflatable mattress she set up, carrying a book with her.

She pressed her elbows on a soft pillow, rested her book as well, and flipped it open. Printed words filled her vision and her eyes happily started reading through the paragraph she last read.

Whenever Yaz read, she was always getting lost in her own bubble. No one could disturb her from having a good read. It was why she never noticed Clara snooping in, even if she was clearly in her peripheral vision.

“Jane Austen, huh?”

The bubble popped almost immediately.

Yaz didn’t know why she blushed. Everyone knew her knack for her books.

Clara settled right beside her, elbows on the mattress and palms underneath her chin. She took a glimpse at the tiny words of the book.

“Mansfield Park?” she exasperated. “I’m a huge fan of Austen, but I couldn’t even finish that till I was in my early 20s.”

It was valid criticism, if it was. The book wasn’t pulling her in at all. It was her fourth Austen novel, and the previous three had been nothing short of amazing.

Yaz huffed. She flipped the book closed and sat it on the wooden tiled floor. “I think it’s too much for me, though,” she finally admitted.

“Don’t be too worried,” said Clara, and she was laying her head on another pillow she grabbed nearby. “Not one of my favourites.”

“Are you an English teacher, Clara?” Yaz asked. She guessed it would be okay to have some form of conversation with the woman whose flat she was staying in.

“Yeah,” the woman replied, shifting her form, “you’re attending Coal Hill, right? In Year 9?”

Yaz nodded. By this point, she gave in her exhaustion and let her head fall on her pillow. She and Clara both stayed like that—glancing each other in awkward silence. Like others before, it wasn’t Clara’s fault Yaz didn’t know how to speak. How could she, after all that had happened prior?

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out.

Clara’s brows furrowed. “What for?”

“I’m not—” the younger girl took a breath, “I’m not good at speaking.”

“Ah.” Clara’s face turned into one of understanding. She smiled.

Yaz felt frozen. Here she was, talking to a woman she barely knew, a woman who last saw her as a waddling toddler, and she just couldn’t bloody _speak_ . Memories were drowning her, pouring into her mind to remind how _weak_ she was, how _disgusting_ , how _wretched_ —

“Yaz, Yaz!”

She felt a soothing warmth envelop her. Clara had stolen her into an attempt of an embrace, what with how they were both lying on the bed. Yaz realised the pin pricking stings in her eyes, and only then was she noticing the tears that built up.

She felt embarrassed. It was only two hours in, and she already experienced an emotional breakdown in front of Clara.

_I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorrysosorryso—_

“Sweetie,” Clara whispered, and Yaz felt small against her. “Shh, it’s okay, I’m here. You just had a panic attack.”

Panic attack, was it? As if she hadn’t felt more broken inside.

“I’m sorry,” Yaz repeated like a broken tune.

“You shouldn’t be,” replied Clara. She looked down. “You deserve to love who you want.”

It was what she said. It sent chills down Yaz’s spine.

But Clara just felt Yaz stiffen. “I’m sorry, that’s a sensitive topic,” she said.

_I’m sorry._

Yaz giggled, relaxing in Clara’s arms.

“What?” Clara asked, face contorted in confusion.

“I’m sorry,” Yaz said again, but with another set of soft laughter, “it’s—it’s what we kept saying to each other. When you spilt hot water on accident, it sprayed on my legs, and I said sorry for being in your way, but you kept saying sorry for being careless. And now this!”

Clara’s face softened.

“Oh?” she chuckled, drawing in relief to see the younger girl laughing.

They were in a fit of laughter for while longer, and when it died down, Clara checked her watch. She frowned, Yaz gazing at her in a confused daze.

“You haven’t slept in hours, it’s 1 in the afternoon now!” she exclaimed, immediately untangling herself from the younger girl in such a panic.

She lifted her head, pushed her upper body up with her palms on the mattress, ready to leave. She set her feet on the wooden floor, watching her pyjamas fall to their actual length.

A hand wrapped around her wrist. Clara turned her head around, and Yaz was sitting up now.

“Stay?” she simply requested. She had pleading eyes, sore from fresh tears.

_Oh._

“Of course.”

They laid back on the bed, and Clara spread a duvet on both of them. Within seconds, she watched as Yaz’s eyes fluttered close and surrendered to the sleep.

 

* * *

 

In the middle of catching up conversations, Najia had mentioned Yaz tossing around and experiencing horrific nightmares about her bullies. It had broken Clara’s heart. Yaz was such a sweet kid.

However, Yaz never had any problems when she slept next to her. In fact, watching her sleep was making her sleepy herself.

Perhaps a nap wouldn’t hurt her…

 

* * *

 

It was her first day in Coal Hill School.

Yaz tugged at her uniform and grimaced. She never liked the tie she always had to wear with one of her white shirts. She also despised the skirt, but at least the blazer was nice and actually fitted her to the wrist.

She instinctively followed Clara, avoiding the looks of the students that passed by. A week after leaving Sheffield, and it still felt like she was back there, cowering in the cruel smirks of her classmates.

She didn’t see her face, but Clara herself was panicking. She was bloody late again, and she didn’t want Yaz to know because it would imply she had some fault in it, which was never the case.

She sped-walked past her students, Yaz tailing behind her. Yaz was perplexed, but she knew how jittery Clara was when she was running on 2 cups of terrible coffee from the local café.

“Class!” Clara greeted when she swung the classroom door open. “Sorry for being two minutes late, traffic bugged me again!”

She wasn’t lying.

Yaz entered the room, and she immediately felt 21 pairs of eyes glancing towards her.

“This is Yasmin Khan, everyone! She’s my friend’s child, and she will be having English for first block,” announced Clara, booming in her teacher’s voice, “so who has Miss Moreno for second block here?”

Two hands raised up straightaway.

“Tanya!” Clara called out. She was looking at the black girl in the back, and Yaz could tell she was younger than the rest of the students. “I trust you can let Yaz follow you around to Miss Moreno’s classroom?”

“It’s no problem, Miss Oswald,” Tanya answered.

Clara shuffled to Yaz, and the younger girl was still stunned like a statue by the glances she was receiving still.

“That’s Tanya Adeola, she’s fantastic,” Clara whispered to her. “She’s younger than most of the kids in her grade because she is that brilliant. Problem is, she doesn’t have much friends to talk to. Is it alright if you can connect with her?”

Yaz nodded in understanding.

“Good,” Clara said. “There’s an empty seat behind her, but it’s the farthest view. Is that alright?”

“No, it’s alright,” replied Yaz, and she walked past between two rows of desks with students until she hung her school bag on the empty chair.

She plopped herself down on the seat, not bothering the dust and the coldness of the plastic material and the metal screws. Her hands were joined together as she sat upright and craned her chin up.

Tanya took one glance at her. She had to be 12 at most.

Yaz tried something.

“Hey,” she whispered. “I’m Yaz.”

“Tanya.”

They glanced at each other for a second or two. Yaz’s light bulb lit up in another conversation idea.

“Alright, class!” Clara suddenly called.

Tanya’s head whipped around, and Yaz shut her mouth close.

She guessed this conversation would happen in another time.

 

* * *

 

Clara and Yaz were at a local froyo shop.

It wasn’t just some random decision from the top of their heads. Yaz had to search up local stores where their food was halal. Froyo just seemed more appetising than hot dogs.

“Najia isn’t going to go off on me for not giving you anything other than this, right?” Clara asked, licking the froyo stuck on her spoon.

“I’m good at lying, Clara,” replied Yaz, and she gave a shrug. “I didn’t just turn into a lesbian because of that one kiss, y’know?”

“Oh.” The reply felt like a punch in the stomach. Dark, gay humour wasn’t really something Yaz was open to mention around anyone that wasn’t Tanya.

She supposed she treated Clara more like her own English teacher than an _older sister she never had_ that her mum told her she was. Then again, they were like two peas in a pod whenever it was English class.

It had been two months since Yaz had arrived to Shoreditch, and she slipped into the comfort of the town more quickly than she expected. She became close with Tanya after two weeks when they were paired up for a History project. April was also a fairly new friend. They shared Science together.

It was a better life than the last few weeks of Sheffield, overall.

“My bad,” she said suddenly, shoving an assortment of fruity toppings and froyo into her mouth, “that kind of humour isn’t up your alley, innit?”

Clara frowned. “Well, if it was the lesbian part, it wasn’t expected in a different way. I hope I didn’t come off as judgemental. As a bisexual woman myself, I stand for the solidarity of women who love women all around the world!”

Well, that was unexpected.

 

* * *

 

Out of the blue, a man swung the glass door open, and the bell rung to alert of a new customer.

He had weird vibes. Yaz could sense it. He was donning an outfit a dorky History professor would wear. Tweed jackets, suspenders, khaki trousers. Also, he had a huge chin and no eyebrows at all. She felt bad for those eyebrows.

But then the weird man was walking her directly towards her and Clara’s table, and Yaz was frozen despite the fight-or-flight response that was loud and clear in her brain.

“Clara!” the man bellowed. “I’ve been waiting inside the t-”

Clara shoved a spoonful of her frozen delight in his mouth to shut him up.

“Damn you and your bloody mouth, Doctor,” she cursed, annoyed, “I sent you a text!”

The weird man swallowed the froyo in his mouth. “You did?” But he flipped out an ID wallet instead. He frowned. “Oh, ten of them, in fact.”

On a bloody ID wallet.

Clara grimaced. “Stop being weird. I’m with Yaz.”

Yaz furrowed her brows, glancing at the weird man. He looked at her with a huge grin, and his nonexistent brows raised up.

“Oi, hello! Yaz, is it?” the weird man said. “I’m the Doctor!”

“Doctor who?” Yaz asked.

The Doctor just let out a chuckle.

“Ah, that’s so cute!” he chirped. “You’re a long way from home, though. That’s a Yorkshire accent, innit?”

“She’s Najia’s child, remember her?” Clara interjected.

“Oh!” The Doctor’s mouth formed an ‘o’ shape. “Oh! Yes, I remember Najia. Well, never met Najia, but stories about her! Najia has a good story, love that story—do you know her story, Yaz?”

What was he even saying?

“I asked you not to be weird, but you’re weirder now!” Clara exclaimed.

“Sorry!” the Doctor apologised. “Can’t help it!”

Yaz had finished her froyo by the time they’d stop making banter. She was looking awkwardly at the two of them, and they felt her stare boring into their conversation.

“Ah, I’m sorry to have interrupted your date,” the Doctor said.

Clara slapped his arm lightly. “It’s _not_ a date. We’re like sisters!”

_We’re like sisters!_

_Sisters._

There was that word again. Yaz knew she wasn’t seeing Clara like that, not at all. It wasn’t just because Clara was her English teacher, but it was the nights when she’d stay over whenever she had nightmares.

The nightmares became more frequent that Clara had invited Yaz to sleep in her bedroom instead. It was their room now, Yaz had integrated her things in the room, and while comforting, it felt odd. They were sharing a bed, sharing the same bathroom, hell, sometimes, they shared _clothes_. Clothes!

Yaz knew what was happening. She hated that it was happening.

Blooming in her heart, she was holding a stupid, bloody crush on her English teacher, her mother’s friend’s child, Clara Oswald.

 

* * *

 

Even after they move in their own flat, Yaz frequently visited Clara’s for tea.

It had just became a place of comfort for her. She and Clara would sit on her comfy sofa, tea in hand, and would just talk about the books they read or what was happening that day. Sometimes she’d also invite Tanya or April over if they had no other plans.

Her visits with Clara became so frequent that one day, her mum asked if she wanted to move to hers again.

“Mum, are you sure that’s okay with you?” she asked, worried.

Her mum only chuckled. “Sweetie, you spend so much time with her that I sometimes don’t even see you go to your own bedroom at night. It’ll be convenient for all of us. Plus, it’s only a ten minute walk.”

And that was that. One week later, Yaz had settled in her teacher’s humble abode yet again.

To celebrate, they spent the night snuggling close to each other with a faux fur throw blanket over themselves as they watch Pride & Prejudice and munch on freshly made popcorn from a kettle.

Halfway through the movie, however, Yaz’s eyes were heavy and alluded her to sleep. She rested her head against Clara’s shoulder, inhaling her coconut shampoo scent. The comfort of her was enough to induce Yaz asleep.

Clara didn’t notice her sleeping form until the 15 minute mark, but she didn’t move when she did. She turned off the movie with a remote. Yaz slept peacefully on her shoulder, so she kissed forehead and watched until she noticed her own drowsiness as well.

“Goodnight, Yaz,” she said to her sleeping form before giving in to her tiredness.

 

* * *

 

Christmas of 2013 was weird.

While she didn’t celebrate it, she enjoyed preparing for a dinner with Clara’s dad and grandparents who she had yet to meet. Her mum first met them when Clara’s mother was still alive.

Come the actual time of the dinner, Yaz was fitting a green paper crown on Clara’s head, and she could feel her shaking again.

“Clara, are you panicking again?” she asked.

“No!” Clara replied too quickly, and Yaz gave her a look. “I’m fine, totally. Can you entertain them while I handle the turkey?”

“The turkey that hasn’t been cooked yet?”

“Oh, shut up!”

Yaz laughed and handed her the phone.

“Ring him,” she said.

“Ring who?”

“The Doctor!” Yaz pointed out. “Pretend he’s your boyfriend. You told your fam you had one.”

Clara scoffed. “What?! No!”

“He could bring another turkey over, save you from the mess you dug yourself in.” Yaz held out the phone, swinging her wrist to tempt the teacher.

Scowling, Clara snatched the phone from her. Yaz indulged in her win, mouthing “Yes!” as Clara was dialing a number out of spite.

Out of entertainment, Yaz rested her elbows on the kitchen counter and dropped her chin to her arms, smiling at the woman.

The phone rung two times, and Clara set a small pot on the stove.

“Emergency, you’re my boyfriend!”

Later on, he came to the flat, naked. Nude. No clothes on. Showed up with his full-on glory.

It wasn’t even the weirdest part about this.

“Ah, Yaz!” the Doctor squeaked.

Clara’s cheeks reddened. “Yaz! Uh, we’ll be—we’ll be in the bedroom.”

Yaz couldn’t even be mad. She cackled. It gave her a naughty idea for playing cheeky. “I told you to get a fake boyfriend, not hook-up with the Doctor!”

“I hate you!”

“No, you don’t!”

 

* * *

 

Clara had disappeared.

Then, she phoned in a week later via a phone box. In Glasgow.

“I’m sorry,” Clara said, sniffling. She was crying. “The Doctor—he just died.”

Yaz and her mum drove to Glasgow and picked her up.

 

* * *

 

There was no funeral for the Doctor. Clara had never mentioned him again.

It struck Yaz like a broken chord. She had never seen the woman so heartbroken before.

Clara had lost her best friend. Yaz felt bad for wondering how that felt like.

There was a role reversal. She spooned Clara during the nights now. The teacher would have nightmares about the Doctor dying, but she never told any of them in detail. They were too vague by the time Yaz woken her if she had done so.

Yaz had convinced her to take a week off before getting back to teaching. It was worth having to do busy work while there were a string of substitutes for English. Worried for Clara, Yaz held her tight, like Clara did when she first slept in Shoreditch.

“You’ve matured too quickly,” Clara said once, while they were cuddling in the duvet over them.

“Mum said that too,” Yaz replied. “She said you did the same around my age.”

Clara smiled, but it was a sad one. She brushed her hand over strands of Yaz’s straightened hair, tucking them behind her newly pierced ear.

“Thank you, Yaz,” she said. “Thank you for being here for me. I love you.”

Yaz inhaled and stopped. Only her mum was allowed to say that to her. But Clara wasn’t thinking, she was deep in her sorrow for the Doctor’s death.

Anyway, it didn’t matter. Yaz hadn’t minded when she said it.

“I love you too, Clara.”

Clara went back to teaching a week later with new energy. She was radiating to see. Yaz was happy to see her so full when she taught.

Another week passed, and Clara met Mr. Danny Pink, an ex-soldier and the new Maths teacher everyone was whispering about.

Several weeks later, _Ozzie loves the Squaddie_ became the new trend of doodles written out in the windows and toilet stalls.

 

* * *

 

There was a new caretaker in the school for several days. His name was John Smith, and he was weird.

“You’re weird,” Yaz blatantly said to him. He was sweeping the wooden floor of Clara’s classroom.

He stopped. “Am I, now?”

Yaz hopped off the desk she was sitting on and kicked the wood. The sun’s rays highlighted the dust coughing from the swing of her shoe.

“Do you know Miss Oswald, Mr. Smith?” she questioned in a tone as if it were an interrogation.

Well, she supposed it was one.

“No,” answered Mr. Smith in his Scottish brogue, “as a matter of fact, I do not know Miss Oswald.”

Yaz raised a brow. She folded her arms and slowly circled around the caretaker. Each step she took was followed by the click of her shoes’ heels as she intended to make sound of her suspicion.

Mr. Smith looked down at her with a smug, but annoyed look.

“Child, what are you doing?”

Yaz scanned him with keen eyes. “Are you a dangerous person?”

The question took Mr. Smith back.

“What?”

“Are you a person who is of any danger to Miss Oswald?” Yaz specified. She stood still, right in front of him.

“Cl-Miss Oswald isn’t in danger, ma’am,” replied the caretaker, setting his broom on the wooden floor. “Shouldn’t you be asking her boyfriend for these questions?”

“And how do you even know if she has a boyfriend when you don’t know who she is?”

Mr. Smith sighed in frustration. “The teachers gossip too, child. She’s always having conversations with that other English teacher… his name is Davies?”

Yaz sputtered out. “You think Miss Oswald is dating Mr. Davies?”

“Ask her then, why don’t you?” he shot back. “Don’t you live with her anyways?”

Yaz was about to say something, but Mr. Smith swung his broom to rest on his shoulder and lifted a hefty bag. He marched out, and Yaz had to scoot aside because she realised he wasn’t going to stop.

“Gossip, Yaz, gossip!”

He left.

How the hell did he know her name?

 

* * *

 

And then Danny Pink died.

It was an unfortunate accident—Danny and Clara were happily talking to each other on the phone, but Danny wasn’t paying attention to the road he was walking on.

A car made a collision against him, and he breathed his last in the scene.

So Clara had gone again, and Yaz tried to phone her.

Najia had stopped her.

“Clara’s grieving now, Yaz,” she reminded her. “She’ll come back soon, remember Glasgow?”

She did remember Glasgow. She was going through one of her worst moments of her life. She experienced panic attacks and nightmares during the week that Clara vanished out of thin air. She was just going to the bedroom with a naked Doctor, and suddenly—

It was unfair. Unfair to Clara, and unfair to herself. They both didn’t deserve the heartbreak.

Yaz slept at her mum’s, at Tanya’s, and at April’s. It was never the same whenever she slept at someone else’s. She didn’t feel that same security, the same comfort unlike Clara’s flat. It never smelled like her coconut shampoo or her sickening cologne that she sprays on when she has no time to shower in the morning.

When she would come to the flat in the mornings during the weekend, she’d cry. She’d let the tears bring hot pain to her eyes and let them fall to the floor. She’d sob until she couldn’t anymore. She would sleep on the sofa and wake up with a shredding headache. She’d phone her mum over and nurse her headache until it was gone, and then she’d rest for the night at her mum’s.

It was a cycle for three weeks. Two weeks longer than last time. Two weeks longer than Yaz had anticipated.

But Clara returned. Najia failed to mention it to Yaz the dinner before, so when the younger girl opened the door to a fixed up Clara, in a dress that she’d never seen before in her life, Yaz fled to the guest room she was staying in, climbed out of the window, and ran away in frustration.

Yaz had never been angry at Clara before. Not once for the past year they stayed with each other. The emotions boiled in her, and it was something like anger that was bubbling in her blood.

She knew she couldn’t stay. She just couldn’t look at Clara without feeling it. She didn’t want to say something that would come back and haunt her for life.

So she ran.

How could—how could Clara do that to her? How could she just run off after a man she barely knew died? He was just a man! An ex-soldier, for crying out loud! Yaz had never looked at a soldier in a positive light. They were trained to kill the enemy, but sometimes, they’d steal away the lives of the innocent, with a bloody stray bullet that happened to hit the wrong person at the wrong time. Then, if they’d do good enough, they’d be sent back to their own families, after they just torn apart thousands more. And sometimes—and sometimes, these people wouldn’t care where their bullets would hit. Where their bombs would detonate. Who would die. Whose lives would be scarred.

But Clara loved him. Clara stupidly loved him. It was a painful notion to realise. Clara loved Danny Pink. He was smart, funny, and came off as genuine man who’d be perfect for Clara to spend the rest of her life with. He felt guilt, so much remorse for whatever happened back when he was a soldier, and Yaz saw it. Yaz saw the wet tears that were drying on his face on his first day at Coal Hill. It never changed what he did, but he was in genuine pain. And Clara was his healer, whether she knew it or not.

To Yaz, Clara fell for a soldier who mercilessly killed innocents, and he returned to his homeland once he was good enough to.

To Clara, she fell in love with a maths teacher who couldn’t ask her out if he had to save her life.

Yaz stopped running.

 

* * *

 

Yaz was rushed home that same night with the help of Tanya’s mum, Vivian, who spotted her shivering underneath a bus stop.

It rained that day, so it took her five minutes to even get in the car because she didn’t want to soak the passenger seat. Ultimately, she gave in when she realised that her teeth were chattering from the cold.

When Vivian reached the flat, Najia hastily rushed down generous sets of stairs with a raincoat and a huge umbrella to help her through the rain. The woman gave out the most relieved face Yaz had ever seen ever.

“Thank you so much, Vivian!” Najia cried, wrapping a rained-down Yaz, not caring for her overall wetness.

“It was no problem at all,” replied Vivian. “I consider Yaz as one one of my own now! She lit up Tanya’s world so much.”

Yaz managed a small smile at the mention of Tanya. They never really talk about how they just became friends. It just, sort of, happened, really.

“Why don’t you stay for some tea before you go back?” offered Najia, to which Vivian initially shook her head to. “No, it’s no problem to me! It’s the least you could since you’ve brought the light of my life back to me safe and sound.”

So Vivian stayed, and she went in Najia’s flat for tea. The two mums went off into some conversation that Yaz couldn’t really a part of, and she knew what that meant. Oh, it was more than just Najia doing Vivian a favour and being nice. Najia knew Yaz, and the younger girl cursed at her mum internally when she stuck herself in the bathtub full of hot water and bubbles.

Yaz was only just stalling now. She knew she had to talk at some point.

Talk to Clara.

In the time between the moment she sprinted off and now, Yaz did admit to herself that she had calmed down from the rage she first felt. It was so sudden—Clara’s arrival had triggered a cauldron of vile emotions that Yaz wasn’t aware she was feeling. Combined with the sudden flashbacks of Sheffield and her father, Yaz had snapped.

She hadn’t realised the tears again until she glanced at the bathroom mirror when she quit the bathtub. She dabbed them off with a face towel, attempting to look as emotionally stable as she could.

The moment she stepped into the guest bedroom, she froze.

Clara sat on the bed, eyes jerking tears out of her, the new dress discarded for a t-shirt and shorts, and her hair in a bed-ridden mess.

Yaz herself was just wrapped in a bath towel. She couldn’t think about how mad or how embarrassed she felt towards the older woman at the moment. That look in her eyes—she knew who they reminded her of.

Herself.

_Najia slid in Yaz’s room that night, wearing one of the most saddest faces she’d ever seen. The mother swept Yaz up and took her in a suffocating embrace._

_“I would’ve shunned you from this house if this happened two years ago, love,” she admitted, choking back the tears that threatened to spill, “but I’m learning now. I have friends who are helping me understand.”_

_Yaz didn’t dare to look in her own mother’s eyes. The self-loathing damaged her, had ruined her. She couldn’t see anyone without feeling the burden of guilt and hatred weighing her down._

_“We’re going to escape, you and I,” her mother continued. “Your father and I are getting legally separated. I’m not having him touch you like that ever again.”_

Yaz breathed again.

“I’ll go—I’m getting clothes,” she tried to speak.

“Oh, yeah, here’s your pjs,” Clara responded, handing over the pair of clothes.

Once Yaz had fitted into them in another room, she returned to the guest bedroom where Clara had been fiddling with her fingers, and she was breathing so heavily Yaz could hear it by the doorway.

Yaz was worried for Clara. There wasn’t anything she could do to mask that.

Clara patted the empty space beside her, and Yaz hesitated. The older woman frowned, although she made a face of acceptance. _I deserve this._ She sighed however, glancing away from the younger girl and focused on the printed Van Gogh painting hanging loose on the wall.

Her voice—oh so held by the compartmentalisation she built up over the years—shuddered.

“I thought you were never coming back.”

“I could say the same for you.”

Clara’s gaze locked with Yaz’s own. Bloodshot eyes were seen under the orange lamp sitting on the nightstand beside her. The two breathed in the awkward tension—a blend of disappointment, anger, and sorrow diffusing in the air—and they felt like it would choke them if they were silent long enough.

Yaz didn’t hesitate this time; she crawled to the cold spot beside Clara. She leaned to the older woman’s face and pressed a kiss on her small cheek.

“Can we just not argue? Just make it all up now?” she asked, unafraid. “Frankly, I’m tired, and I’ve been shivering too long. I’ve missed your hugs.”

Speechless. Clara was left without any words forming in her mouth. The English teacher fell victim to stuttering.

“I can’t sleep unless you spoon me, Clara.”

Yaz flipped to the other side of the bed, and she let herself drop on the soft mattress of her mum’s guest bed. It smelled of lavender, of course.

Soon enough, Yaz felt a warm body press against her back, and her neck tickled of Clara’s stuttering breaths. It was obvious that she was nervous—afraid she’d leave again.

“Hey, Clara?” Yaz muttered.

“Hm?”

“I love you. You know that?” she said. “I’m sorry I made you panic.”

Clara was silent, save for a sharp intake of air.

“I don’t know what I’d really do without you. I thought I was going through that, but you returned. So I guess I haven’t truly experienced it yet. I’m sorry.”

Yaz was too tired to speak anymore. Her eyes fluttered with every word she spoke.

Once she succumbed to her tiredness, Clara lifted her head and stroke her hand along Yaz’s hair.

“Sweetie, you lost me already,” she admitted. “I barely managed to come back.”

She sighed, her head falling back on the nape of Yaz’s neck.

“How I wish I could tell you everything about me.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you want to know where I go?”

“Hm?”

It was the morning after. Yaz and Clara were left in Najia’s flat with no Najia or Vivian to keep them cooped inside the guest bedroom. Luckily for both them, it was a Saturday.

“Where I escape to,” specified Clara. “Whenever I leave, to disappear suddenly.”

She was too hazy from the satisfying sleep she had gotten. Sane Clara would be too worried about the sensitivity of the topic.

She held her spoon’s handle with the tight grip and dug the bowl of the utensil into frozen ice cream tub that stayed in the freezer for maybe two weeks. With no prevail, she pouted.

Yaz, opposite to Clara’s spot in the dining table, tilted her head in puzzlement. “I think you can keep your hideout place a secret.”

“But what if I’m involved in an emergency situation?” inquired Clara, and she sucked her thumb of the melted chocolate ice cream flavour.

The younger girl inspected her, deciphering meaningless clues of her facial expressions and posture, trying to delve into the _secrecy_ of Clara Oswald’s mind.

She couldn’t find shit.

“Okay, why not,” she accepted afterwards.

Later on, Yaz found herself squinting at a brightly coloured brick loft in the middle of nowhere. There was road pavement, but everything else was just green. Just trees, infesting all around. It looked like some rubbish nature documentary on the Amazon Forest—just less moist. No, wet. Damp?

(Fuck innuendoes.)

“Someone I know hooked me up with this loft in case of emergencies,” asserted Clara.

Yaz glowered, which Clara had expected. The response, however, wasn’t.

“Did you bloody mate with some sugar daddy or something?”

Sometimes, Clara had forgotten that Yaz was still a hormonal teenager despite her maturity and trauma.

_Also, bold of you, young lesbian, to assume that only men have all the money._

She didn’t say that out loud.

“I’m your English teacher!” she reasoned instead.

“I live with you!” Yaz fired back.

They bickered with each other until Clara picked at the lock of the front door and keyed it open.

Clara plopped down on a bean bag in what seemed to be the living room. Yaz took a second to revel in the interior of the loft.

“But it’s nicer than your own flat,” she commented, brushing her hand on the sofa she was standing next to. “Why come back to Shoreditch?”

Clara’s brow furrowed. “I’m hurt that you think I’d be that heartless.”

“No,” interjected Yaz, and she was sitting on the sofa now. _Comfy sofa_. “No, I didn’t mean it like that.”

They shared a look—one of understanding and the other of perplexation.

“For the past year, almost two I’d argue, you’ve been nothing short of kind to me. We’ve never had a single argument ever,” Yaz explained. “I was thinking, on the way here, that you’ve always had your intentions to always be kind because you wanted to protect me. You didn’t want to trigger some memory of my father or anything my classmates had ever done to me. I say this because I’ve seen how tired you look sometimes. You’ve done so much, but not for yourself. It’s why I didn’t want to argue with you the night before.”

She exhaled and took in another breath, as if she had lost her own.

“I thought you’d need time to take of yourself, you thought this was the only way. Granted, it was very stupid of you, but you were emotional. Just like I was. I’m sorry,” Yaz continued. “I was so focused on my own pain that I hadn’t thought about how you were feeling. I’m so so so—”

“Shhh, Yaz,” said Clara. She walked over to wrap her arms around the emotional teenager. “I was stupid, you were right. I could’ve warned you that I would be away, but I didn’t. That was bad on my part.”

“I’m very lucky to have such an understanding person like you in my life, however,” continued Clara. “I love you, sweetie.”

In the evening, they’d watch terrible soap operas on DVD and end up sleeping by each other on a sofa again.

 

* * *

 

Here’s the thing: you can’t just show up someone’s house unannounced when they’ve not want anything from you for years. Not when they don’t even want to see your face.

Yaz was celebrating her 15th birthday. It was just a small get together with her friends, Clara, and her mum. Nothing too extravagant.

Over all the fit of laughters from the humourous pig that April attempted to draw for pictionary, Yaz heard the door knock several times. She left the collective laughter to answer the door.

She twisted knob open and creaked it open.

_SLAM!_

The laughter died off instantly.

“How the hell did he find us?!” Yaz bellowed to no one as she stomped to the bathroom.

Najia took initiative, signing Clara to go after Yaz as she would go see who was at the front door.

Yaz’s face said it all. Najia didn’t have to guess.

“What’s happened?” April asked, a little oblivious to the situation at hand.

Tanya lightly smacked her arm, and she placed a finger over her lips.

Najia ignored the two friends as she opened the door again.

“Why would you pick the worst time to come and find us?” she questioned, trying to keep a calm tone and holding back her obvious anger.

It was Yaz’s father and Najia’s wife, Hakim. He held a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a gift bag in another.

“I wanted to tell her my side of the story,” he said.

“Try that again.”

“What?”

“Try. That. Again,” Najia insisted. “The sentence.”

Hakim huffed, but he obliged.

“I wanted to explain myself,” he tried again.

“Wrong.”

“I wanted to apologise.”

“And?”

There was a prolonged pause. Najia almost slammed the door on him.

“I wanted to apologise,” Hakim repeated, “and I wanted to say I was so wrong. I’m sorry, Yaz.”

“That wasn’t hard, was it?” Najia said rhetorically. “You’ll speak with Yaz when she wants to.”

She slammed the door on him, and she took a deep sigh.

“I’m so sorry for that inconvenience, girls,” she said to the friends. “I guess we should start with the cake now?”

 

* * *

 

Yaz refused to speak with him. Najia understood.

 

* * *

 

_He didn’t have the right to do that._

_He didn’t have the right to just barge in my life again._

_He couldn’t just knock the door and expect me to open my arms for him again._

_He ruined me. He hit me. He punched me. He slapped me. He haunted me. He plagued me._

_He convinced me that there was something wrong about me. He convinced me that I was broken and needed to be fixed._

_He told me I was wrong, that I wasn’t telling the truth, that I was only rebelling because I wanted to fit in like the cool kids._

_Bullshit._

_It wasn’t Izzy Flint who ruined my life. It was my own father._

_Half of my myself was my own damnation._

_Fuck off, father. You don’t have the right to see me as your daughter anymore._

Yaz dropped the pen, dug herself under the duvet into Clara’s arms, and cried.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks afterwards, Yaz went down with a fever.

Clara woke up to find the teenage girl sweltering, and the pillow she slept on was damp with sweat.

“Shit,” she swore, sitting up. “Hey, Yaz, sweetie, wake up. You’re going down.”

She didn’t wait for the girl to rouse up. Instead, Clara rushed into the bathroom and soaked a new hand towel with cold water. She returned to their bedroom and noticed that Yaz had awaken from her sleep.

“No, Yaz, lay down,” Clara insisted.

Yaz groaned, but she obliged. Her throat felt like burning flames. Her vision was blurred, and she felt a panging pain in her head. It was muggy and humid all around, and she couldn’t stand it.

When she tried to complain, nothing but a few garbled noises escaped her lips. Her throat screamed in agony, and the burning sensation was unpleasant.

Clara crawled on the bed and placed the folded hand towel on Yaz’s forehead. Then, she set up a thermometer and placed the tip of it inside Yaz’s mouth.

“I’m gonna go make some chicken noodle soup and bring you water, so just stay here,” said Clara. “When you’re done, you should take Tylenol and maybe take a bath if you can manage it. Is that fine?”

Yaz nodded, careful not to make the thermometer in her mouth drop.

Clara patted her shoulder and left for the kitchen, but not before she grabbed her phone to check in with Najia.

_Hey, Najia, I’m sorry to say, but Yaz is going down with a fever_ , she texted.

Najia responded in seconds.

_I’ll come over there in two hours, Clara. Thank you for notifying._

_No problem!_

Clara exhaled. It was going to be a long day.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, Najia had arrived.

“Is Yaz awake?” she asked.

Clara nodded as she helped the older woman shrug her coat off. Najia mumbled a thanks before she went straight to their bedroom.

Yaz was sitting upright on the bed, reading a Jane Austen novel as she sipped the tea from the mug in her hand. Her hair was greasy, damp, and tied up in a frizzing bun. She looked groggy, but maybe better than when she first woke up.

There was a bowl of what seemed to be unfinished chicken noodle soup on the nightstand. Next to it was a stack of drying hand towels.

Overall, Yaz seemed to find joy despite cooped up in the bedroom for the rest of the day.

Najia turned back to Clara, who was looking through a series of text messages she missed while caring for Yaz.

“Thank you for taking care of my daughter, Clara,” she said to the teacher. “This seems to be her home now, really. I think I want to stay if that’s the case.”

Clara stopped scrolling.

“What’s the ‘but’ in this situation, Najia?” she asked.

Najia halted. There was sigh of guilt, and an inhale of fear.

“I’ve never told anyone in this life about this yet,” she admitted, her voice stuttering a bit. “Clara, ever since we’ve moved here, I’d talk to Hakim at least once per month.”

Clara’s brows furrowed. A look of disappointment and worry crossed her face. “Najia, you know how Yaz would feel about this,” she added. “You can’t tell her.”

“Clara, I have to, and that’s the problem!” cried Najia. “We both agreed on a legal separation. We talked ever since then, and—look, the man who attacked my daughter wasn’t Hakim. He—”

“No. Najia, _you_ have to try that again.”

“My husband attacked my daughter because he was ignorant and full of hatred,” Najia bluntly stated.“But he and I—we’ve been learning. He still loves her, Clara, and I couldn’t ignore him for long. I married him because he wants to understand. He wants to make it up to Yaz. He just—he snapped! I couldn’t have him near Yaz, so I called you.”

“You know she won’t move back to Sheffield, right?” Clara pointed out.

“Which is why I’m having him and Sonya move to Shoreditch instead,” explained Najia. “Yaz doesn’t have to move back with us. She’s safe in your protection, and I know that I can’t let Hakim see Yaz without her permission. It’s what she deserves.”

Clara sighed. It was an honest and frankly, a good deal. Yaz didn’t have to face Hakim if she didn’t want to.

“But you’ll tell her, right?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Good.”

Her phone buzzed, and she read the notification.

“Oh, damn!” Clara cursed.

“What is it?”

“Errands. I forgot to run some errands Miss Moreno asked me to do,” Clara stated. “You wouldn’t mind if you stayed here for the night? I think I’ll be back tonight.”

“Sweetie, I was planning on staying anyway,” Najia replied. “You should go now. I can look after my own daughter.”

“Tell her I said I love her!”

 

* * *

  


_Dear Yaz,_

_Stars, you’re not even going to read this nonexistent letter. Nevermind that._

_Yaz, I love you. I love you so so much. You’ve been the light of my life for the past two years, and I couldn’t have asked for a better friend than you._

_Yaz, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being reckless. I’m sorry for running away when I could’ve ran into your arms, the way you did when you needed me. I’m sorry for hurting you._

_I’m sorry for what’s about to happen._

_I love you, Yasmin Khan. I hope you know that. I hope that when I’ve gone, you’ll still be the brilliant girl I’ve had the honour to teach._

“Let me be brave,” she whispered.

She stood still as the quantum shade flew into her.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 journal entries, 3 years apart.
> 
> (tw multiple mentions of a lesbian slur)

**Journal Entry #609**

 

What the fuck.

 

* * *

  
  


It was all a blur.

She remembered screaming—she was screaming so loud, cries that were ear-splitting; she also remembered the pain. Memories of an aching heart as the flashbacks overwhelmed her, the realisation that she would never create more moments just like them shooting an arrow straight through her fragile self.

Then it was all just a smudge in her mind. A blurred streak in a timeline full of joy. Vague moments sparked once in a while, but she couldn’t complete the full day.

She could never forget the day it happened. She could never forget the day she’d lose Clara Oswald permanently.

But it was all just a blur—except for the mess that was her emotions when a strange woman claiming to be from UNIT phoned in to inform her of the English teacher’s sudden death.

 

* * *

  
  


Yaz couldn’t speak.

When the crowd of mourners turned their attention to the girl, she felt helpless. The words were all clogged in her throat. She couldn’t breathe, let alone even speak.

It was a sudden push back to the glares of her classmates, to the the homophobic insults that nearly drove her insane, to her father who used his hand to express his anger towards her. It all flashed within a few seconds—seconds that felt like hours—and abruptly, she was short of breath. 

Najia rushed to her, wrapped her daughter in a warm embrace, and ran her fingers through Yaz’s hair as the teenager began sobbing on her chest. 

Najia spoke for Yaz instead. Some of the mourners started crying themselves. 

“Clara Oswald was one of the bravest, kindest people I’ve ever met,” Najia stated. “She shared those characteristics with her mother, who I also knew well.”

Yaz felt her mother’s hand twitch through their hold of each other.

“I’m so thankful for her,” continued Najia, breathing in to keep her tone calm, “so thankful that this woman was one of my daughter’s closest friends. When I was supposed to be her mum, Clara stepped in and basically filled in that role for me and her. She was the better guardian for Yaz. I couldn’t provide for Yaz like Clara could.”

It was sad, but it was the truth. For the past two years, it was Clara who Yaz would first talk with to lay out her problems and help her cope. Najia had become a distant parent to Yaz, whereas Hakim was never referred to as her own father.

But Clara wasn’t Yaz’s mum. Nor was she an older sister. Or just a friend. Not a teacher crush.

Clara had become Yaz’s hero. She was her saviour, the light of her life. She was her guide, her own compass. Despite her flaws, it was clear that Yaz had praised this woman so much.

After the funeral, many people sent their deepest condolences to the teenage girl, especially a man with greying hair and a bushy beard that Yaz had recognised.

It was Clara’s own father. 

He gave her a key, and he told Yaz that she knew what it was for. Clara spoke with him about it, but he didn’t know the purpose of the key. It was something regarded as a secret only for Clara and Yaz.

Oh.

 

* * *

  
  


_ “What’s this?” _

_ Clara chuckled as she hefted a small wooden trunk to their bed. Yaz glanced it, scanning every surface of the trunk, curiosity apparent in her eyes. _

_ “This,” Clara said, “is something you’ll open sometime in the future. I’m not telling you when, but you’ll know when to open it.” _

_ “What’s with the secrecy?” Yaz asked, brushing her fingers on the polished wood exterior. _

_ “You’ll understand when the time comes.” _

_ Well, that really helped. _

_ The fog of mystery in Clara’s intentions worried Yaz. It wasn’t like the woman to be so secretive. She wondered for one moment if there was something that had bothered Clara. Bothered her so much that maybe she needed to give Yaz something to explain it instead because— _

_ No. That couldn’t be it. Clara dying? She was just an English teacher. _

_ “What’s inside?” she asked, continuing the conversation. _

_ Clara shouldn’t be thinking about dying. She was far from that. Granted, Coal Hill was infamous for its concerningly high body count. It was Clara, though. She was strong, could probably handle a little bit of danger. _

_ “Oh, you know, stuff.” _

_ Yaz never bothered with another question. She didn’t itch for unnecessary fits.  _

_ Still, the trunk worried her. And everyday after that, a part of her would be worried for when Clara would tell her to go ahead back to the flat without her.  _

_ For Clara was just an English teacher, right? _

_ No, she was more than that. _

_ Yaz should’ve poked into that conversation. _

 

* * *

  
  


A week later, and Yaz hadn’t opened the trunk.

Maybe she shouldn’t. It would truly mean that Clara wasn’t coming back. Then again, she needed to know what Clara placed inside the trunk. What was so important to Clara that she couldn’t give to Yaz as long as she even breathed?

She stared at it. Arms wrapped around her legs, resting her head against thighs, she remained immobile save for her chest rising with her breaths. 

She still couldn’t speak.

A word hadn’t fell from her mouth since she found out. Her voice failed her. Words—sounds, even—she couldn’t form. 

She could only just stare.

It made her feel weak. Weaker than before she had met Clara Oswald.

Meeting her made her stronger. She hadn’t felt more alive. More safe. More gleeful. Her world became a colourful wonderland. Every little speck of her life meant so much more.

“Yaz?”

For once, her eyes shifted away from the trunk. 

Najia was standing by the doorway, a mug of hot tea in her hand.

“Are you going to open that trunk?” she asked.

Maybe Najia knew what was inside. Yaz didn’t ask.

She shook her head instead.

“Okay, we’ll bring it to my flat.”

And that was that. The trunk was moved, along with all of Yaz’s belongings, to Najia’s flat. Yaz had no choice but to move in with her mum.

 

* * *

  
  


It turned out that Yaz inherited everything Clara owned. Her name was the only one on Clara’s will. The sole beneficiary.

Yaz kept the clothes she would borrow, make-up she would wear, and the bed that she missed so much. She let her mother handle the rest of the legalities.

 

* * *

  
  


She began speaking again two days after.

 

* * *

  
  


“I’m moving back to Sheffield.”

Tanya’s face shifted.

“Why are you moving back?” she questioned. “Isn’t that where your asshole of a father lives? Didn’t you want to never step foot in Sheffield again?”

Yaz wanted to cry. Just a year ago, Tanya’s father had died of a sudden heart attack. Yaz and Clara were Tanya’s closest friends, and they were always the ones who she would spill out her emotions to.

With Clara dead, Yaz was the only one left.

“My mum was going to have him and my sister move here,” Yaz explained, “but then Clara died. Everywhere I go now reminds me of her. Shoreditch, it’s overwhelming me. It was ultimately my choice as to who was moving.”

Tanya faltered. “I’ve got no one left.”

“We can talk to each other still on Skype,” Yaz offered, “but I need space. I can’t go back to Coal Hill School when people are going to come up and try to console me. I feel suffocated either way. Sheffield will give me that space, even if I have to endure some homophobic twats.”

Tanya sipped more of her coffee as she held in a breath. Yaz could tell she was attempting to hold back developing tears. It was easy to spot considering she was doing a lot of that herself.

Tanya wiped those tears with her knitted scarf.

“Yeah, I get how that can feel,” she said, her voice shaking. “I can’t be angry at you. You just lost Miss Oswald. Just disappointed, I guess.”

There it was. Yaz held in a breath, guilt rushing in her mind again.

“Don’t feel guilty, Yaz,” Tanya continued. “It’s okay to make decisions that help you. If it means I can’t see you everyday anymore, I’m fine with that. You deserve that.”

Yaz couldn’t pretend to feel anything but, yet she plastered a sad smile on her face. She didn’t want to break down in the public, especially in a café. 

She was thankful for her sympathetic friend.

 

* * *

  
  


In two weeks, Yaz and Najia was headed back to Sheffield.

Yaz doesn’t think about how much it would change. She was only in Shoreditch for two and a half years.

The best two and half years of her life, perhaps.

 

* * *

  
  


Hakim opened the door to greet Yaz and Najia.

“Don’t speak to me. You don’t have that right yet,” Yaz stated flatly. She hefted her suitcases and brushed past him.

Najia shrugged at Hakim.  _ You know this was how she was going act.  _

Yet. That was the word both parents caught on, however.

 

* * *

  
  


Redlands Secondary School had an entirely different energy than Coal Hill had.

First of all, there wasn’t an extremely long list of missing people connected to the school. Secondly, Yasmin Khan still had her infamous reputation riding behind her back.

She laid low. She attended her classes, paid attention, excelled in her tests, and she never stayed close with anyone. Tanya was already her friend, and they adapted with their Skype sessions. She couldn’t join clubs because it would actually mean socialising with people, which wasn’t her goal when attending this goddamn school.

Oh, she could hear the gossip. She would hear  _ dyke  _ being whispered out by students all throughout the hallways, followed by several glares from the teachers. The homophobia was prevalent still, but it never bothered her as much as it did back then. 

_ Don’t let them win.  _ It’s what Clara had always told her whenever they faced discrimination.  _ Don’t you dare give them the satisfaction. _

Yaz had garnered a new recognition for that. A stone cold bitch, they’d say. She wasn’t rude, no, but she’d never react to their strikes. Even the racist slurs didn’t have much of an effect anymore.

Clara had toughened her. It wasn’t a secret. 

But someone else had fallen into the same kind of treatment.

A new student. She was flown in from Japan after her parents were arrested for murdering 10 people in Osaka. She lived with her aunt now, who was nothing but a sweet lady and knew Yaz back when she was younger.

A sixth-former had cornered her one day. She was pinned to the bathroom wall when teachers weren’t nearby. 

“You fucking bitch! You really had your dirty dyke hands all over my younger sister, huh?” the sixth-former yelled at her.

Luckily, Yaz was in one of the bathroom stalls that day. She walked out of the stall seemingly not caring for the situation at hand.

“Let her go, Quinn,” she said as she fixed strands of her hair in the mirror.

Just that simple statement riled her up. However, she did let go of the poor girl’s shirt.

“Yasmin Khan,” she sneered. “Should’ve known your dyke ass would be in here. Do all dykes come in packs or something?”

Yaz only chuckled, angering Quinn even more. “It’s funny,” she said, “because all I hear is  _ dyke  _ and it’s like you’re asking me to come up and make out with you or something.”

Quinn was fuming. She extended her arm and gripped Yaz’s collar, but it was her fault for picking a fight with Yaz. Her right hand grabbed Quinn’s wrist, and her waist bended to give her an opportunity to push Quinn down with the help of her left forearm. Yaz’s knee pressed the corner of Quinn’s shoulder, and the sixth-former yelped in pain.

“Since no one in this school ever bothered to make friends with me, it should be known that I’m a rokudan in both judo and karate,” she said. “You think people will legitimately fear me now that I’ve incapacitated the biggest bully in Redlands Secondary?”

She patted Quinn’s other shoulder as she she stood up and stepped on the part where her knew used to be.

“You should go, Daisy,” Yaz said. “Tell Tina that Yaz said hi!”

 

* * *

  
  


Yaz received a three day suspension for  _ assaulting  _ Quinn Andrews. Najia tried to defend her, while Hakim sat back speechless. 

Yaz couldn’t care less. It wasn’t like she was going to turn a new leaf and begin flipping anyone who dare crossed her.

The drive back home after the meeting was silent. Yaz was occupied in her void of thoughts, listening to a classical playlist Clara built one day. 

She wasn’t going to let another person go through the bullshit she went through in Redlands, especially when she looked around Tanya’s age.

Daisy Arima was was under her protection now. Anyone who tried to hurt her would have to face Yaz now.

It didn’t quite sit well with Hakim, however.

When Yaz was about to lock herself shut in her room again, Hakim stomped his foot, and Najia called him out for it.

“No, I’m going to speak with Yaz,” Hakim scolded, “I’m her father!”

“Some father you were,” Najia shot back. “You traumatised her and she has PTSD now!”

Hakim was quiet afterwards.

Yaz had enough of them. They were always arguing about her, unaware of Sonya spiraling down in a path of alcohol and other drugs. When she turned 17, Yaz would pick up Sonya from parties she snuck into and covered her when her parents ask of her.

Yaz and Sonya weren’t close, but they were still sisters. They tolerated each other.

“It’s okay, mum,” Yaz said, “I’ve decided to talk to dad.”

Najia nodded and let the two be.

 

* * *

  
  


It was a confrontation she spent 3 years preparing for.

Yaz wasn’t going to pretend that she was calm. Yaz wasn’t going to throw back a punch or two at her father either.

Emotions were quite straightforward when it came to her father. She viewed him as this figure of rage and ignorance, wrapped in an innocent, cringy dad persona that was so on-point no one believed that Hakim Khan would ever lay a hand on his daughter until photos of her bare back and shoulders were released to the police.

While Yaz was frightened for her own life, she knew that nothing but a burning flame lit in her whenever she thought about her father. She just felt nothing but anger.

No amount of apologies or  _ I love yous  _ would ever calm down that fire.

“I’m not about to give you a life story of what happened for the last two and half years that I was separated by you,” Yaz started, keeping her tone civil. “I’ll just tell you something. Anger. It’s a powerful emotion. Everyone knows that. It can lead you to do things you never thought you would do if you don’t control it.”

Yaz paced around the dining table, her eyes the equivalent of daggers against Hakim.

“I was vulnerable. I am still vulnerable. Two years didn’t significantly change much about me,” she continued. “I just got tougher. I just learned how to deal with the homophobia and the racism more efficiently. I’m not numb to the pain, however. I just don’t let anyone think I was affected by their words.”

“Clara Oswald was a better parent than both you and Mum. Maybe it’s because she understood the pain that I was going through. Maybe it’s because she was more open-minded, more nurturing unlike you ever were. You’d always make jokes about me getting a boyfriend when I was in primary school while Clara never said something out of line. I knew she was angry at you as well, but she never showed me. It got personal with her just because her father was one of the kindest human beings she’s ever known while you bruised me for kissing a girl.”

“The fact is: I can’t ever forgive you for what you did to me. If I were her, I would’ve cut ties with you forever. I have that right. But Mum loves you, and I still love her because she knows what’s best for me and that’s why she let me live with Clara instead. I guess I’ll make an effort in tolerating the man who abused me.”

“Homophobia coming from parents is a whole new level. You took on a responsibility of caring for me, loving me for who I am, no matter what. That includes me being a lesbian. You failed that oath.”

“I was angry. So angry. When I saw you on my 15th birthday, I never wanted to punch the daylights out of anyone in my life. It took so much in me to just slam the door instead. Clara was good at teaching me to handle my anger. While I’m still not the best at it, at least Quinn doesn’t have a broken arm, eh?”

“It’s just sad, y’know? I can’t give sympathy to you now because what could be worse than being beaten up by your own father? So while I’ll respect you because you’re still my father, I still can’t quite view you as someone I can truly trust.”

Hakim felt a lump in his throat. There weren’t any words he could conjure up to respond.

“So thanks, really,” Yaz said. “If you hadn’t been such an asshole, I wouldn’t have met the best person in my life.”

 

* * *

  
  


On her final day of suspension, Yaz was walking down a sidewalk when there’s a fit of shouts that she heard not far from where she was walking.

Instead of passing by, she followed the source of the shouting.

A woman was running away. When Yaz looked closer to her face, the woman looked like she had never ran this fast in her life. Yaz’s brow furrowed, but then her eyes shifted towards the woman’s chaser.

“Get back here, you fucking cunt!” a man with a bloody kitchen knife in hand scolded.

Calling 999 would be inefficient. Plus, Sheffield coppers were twats.

She ran after the two instead.

Luckily, she still knew her way around town. There were alleyways she could take to reach the fleeing woman faster. She sped through several blocks following the man before taking a sharp turn into a narrow alleyway, ignoring the stench that came from several dumpsters.

Another lucky thing: they were headed straight to the police station.

Yaz caught the sight of the woman’s dress, and she followed. The alleyway shortcut took her to the centre of the block, so it was inevitable that she would spot her. 

“HELP!” the woman cried out for one last time before Yaz grabbed a hold of her. She tried to fight against Yaz’s grip, but Yaz was able to bring her arms down.

“Hold on there, ma’am! You’re fine, I’m here,” Yaz said, “follow my steps: breathe in, breathe out.”

When the woman finally calmed down, she looked at Yaz with a relieving smile. “Thank you so much. Are you the police?”

Yaz shook her head. “No. I was walking by and I heard you crying out for help.”

“I really thought I was going to die today, huh?” the woman said.

“The day’s not over yet, you cunts!”

The man caught up to them. He was holding a pistol instead of his knife. He pointed it straight at the woman’s chest, and with no hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

Before anything else could happen, Yaz pushed the woman aside, and an excruciating pain exploded within her right shoulder.

Yaz took the bullet for the woman.

The teenage girl fell to her knees, biting down a cry of pain. When the man tried to shoot again, the gun jammed. 

There was a flurry of blue and red lights coming not far from their direction, and so the man tossed the gun in a dumpster and ran.

The woman took this opportunity and fell down alongside her to press a handkerchief against the gunshot wound. Yaz hissed at the burning pain it caused.

“Fuck, shit, I’m so sorry!” the woman cried. “But I should be doing this. I don’t want you to bleed to death when you’ve already put your life in line for me. You look so young, aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. There was a man who attempted to shoot her and the woman she took the bullet for was concerned for her education. 

“I’m on my final day of suspension,” Yaz said. “Defended a girl from a sixth former bully.”

The woman’s face turned into one of understanding. “Oh, God, you’re Yasmin Khan. The parents of Redlands always tell cruel stories about you, don’t they?”

“I don’t mind. Makes me feel more powerful because they’re so pressed about me by simply existing.”

The woman pressed harder on the wound. “I’m gonna need you to lay down so I can call for an ambulance, okay?”

Yaz obeyed, lying down on the concrete floor. The woman was able to press down the wound firmly while she slipped her phone out from her purse.

“Janet, hello, oh, God, it’s me, Lena,” the woman said, “a girl’s been shot. Her name’s Yasmin Khan. Jan, Ian tried to kill me today, and she just came out of nowhere and took a bloody bullet for me! I need an ambulance, ASAP!”

When she ended the call, she pressed both hands on Yaz’s shoulder, and the teenage girl bit back a scream.

“Don’t worry, Yasmin. Help is on the way. My name’s Dr. Lena Prince, and I’d like to thank you for saving my life today.”

 

* * *

  
  


Her three day suspension became three months for that. She stayed two months in the hospital to avoid complications with the surgery, and she stayed at home for a month long when she was discharged.

“I’m gonna become a police officer,” she said out of the blue one day. “I’d like to an inspector too.”

Najia was baffled. “Yaz, you got shot by a man three months ago, and you want to be an officer?”

“The woman I saved is a surgeon who personally did my operation,” Yaz said. “The relief I heard in Dr. Prince’s voice when she realised she was safe under my protection—I liked that. I always knew I wanted to help people, y’know? Maybe this is the way.”

“You said you hated those coppers though,” Sonya said from the kitchen, overhearing their conversation.

“I’m going to be different,” Yaz shot back. “I’ll actually want to help people. I won’t use my title to y advantage unlike the dirty white cops who beat on black kids for money.”

“You’d literally be different if you just walked in, really,” Sonya said. “Muslim, brown, girl, and you’re a lesbian! Sis, I think you should take another career path.”

Yaz shrugged with her free shoulder. “Whatever. I’m not going to play safe. This is what I want.”

“I can’t stop you even if I tried to,” Najia said. “Please be careful, Yaz. I don’t want to have to bury one of you. Ever. Not when I’ve already buried Clara.”

The reference to the woman shocked all of the people in the flat.

“I can’t make promises, mum,” said Yaz afterwards, “but you damn well know I’ll fight to keep myself alive till my last breath.”

She kept that promise instead.

 

* * *

  
  


She signed up for the job once she was eligible for it. As expected, her superiors were surprised at how efficient she was at handling the traffic and civil disputes that happened throughout the town.

Still, she wanted more. She wanted to be out there and help people who were in grave danger.

 

* * *

  
  


**2 years later, 2018 Sheffield**

A woman fell from the sky and landed right into a broken down train carriage, and that wasn’t the weirdest event of the entire night.

Yaz rekindles with an old classmate of hers. They haven’t seen each other since primary school. Ryan had moved schools because he’d been bullied for his coordination disorder. He’s working as a warehouse worker to earn money while studying to be a mechanic, and it seems like his life is falling together into a clear path now.

That’s until now, however, when they meet the woman who fell from the sky.

She’s weird in some fascinating way. She doesn’t even remember her own name, but she’s off to find the electric creature that had zapped them all, including Ryan’s grandparents and another person. 

Yaz is in charge. Supposed to be in charge. However, she couldn’t just waltz in and report of a tentacle creature that shootings electricity at people and ruins train carriages. The woman who fell from the sky knows that, uses it as a valid argument against the police officer.

“I’m calling you Yaz because we’re friends now!”

She’s strange, yet there’s a familiarity about her that tells Yaz to follow her. There’s a part in her that’s telling her to trust the strange woman, and so she does.

She’ll learn to never regret listening to her mind the first time ever.

 

* * *

  
  


She attends Grace’s funeral.

It’s the first funeral she’s attended since Clara’s, and her first funeral that happens in her career as a police officer.

She didn’t know Grace well, but she was brave and kind, just like Clara was. It would be rude to not pay respect to the person who saved her life. Also, Ryan insisted that Grace would be happy to see her there.

The woman who fell from the sky attends the funeral as well. Still in her burned, oversized suit, she leans on the back of the wall as Graham’s speaking his eulogy.

The Doctor. That’s her name, Yaz remembers. 

When it’s over, and all the other mourners leave, the group left behind head over to the front of Ryan and Graham’s home.

They’re talking, mainly about Graham and relationship with Grace. The topic shifts to the Doctor, who reminisces of her lost family, and something she says brings a smile to Graham’s face.

Then, out of nowhere, Yaz says something that she’ll be thinking about for a while.

“You really need to get out of those clothes!”

She wants to scream out loud afterwards.

 

* * *

  
  


Yaz has met a person who called himself the Doctor. He was friends with Clara, and then he died a week after Christmas.

It can’t possibly be the same person, right? This person doesn’t even look remotely like him!

They can’t be the same person, yet Yaz has met an alien who steals people’s teeth as trophies after killing them with a simple touch of their cold skin.

Also, the Doctor is an alien. Maybe Clara’s Doctor was also an alien.

Yaz hasn’t opened the trunk Clara had given her all those years ago. She wears the key as a necklace to get herself through the day, as a bittersweet remembrance of the English teacher.

Yaz makes a mental note to open the trunk when she gets back home. She just has to help the Doctor find her spaceship first.

 

* * *

  
  


Space. Yaz is in space.

With no spacesuit whatsoever.

It’s cold out here. She didn’t really think much about what everything was like outside of Earth until now. 

She doesn’t remember anything afterwards. Only the feeling that she’s about to die, and that no one’s ever going to find her body.

Then, she’s in some faulty spaceship with the Doctor and another person, which crash lands on some planet. Turns out, Ryan and Graham were picked up by another ship and landed in the same planet safely.

The planet is like Earth’s deserts. Yaz has never been in a desert in Earth, now that she thinks about it.

She’s walking on a different planet before visiting a desert on Earth.

Okay.

 

* * *

  
  


The TARDIS is the Doctor’s trusty time-travelling spaceship that’s shaped like an old police box. The instructions say to pull the door to open, but the door swings in instead.

Also, it’s bigger on the inside. Vastly bigger. It’s unlike anything Yaz has ever seen before.

The look of pure joy that crosses the Doctor’s face when she finds her spaceship is burned into Yaz’s memory forever. It’s an alien who’s in love with her spaceship, which happens to be sentient and reads thoughts.

Yaz finds it adorable.

 

* * *

  
  


For the past two years, her family has become increasingly concerned for Yaz’s social life. 

It’s a valid concern when Yaz doesn’t make an effort to make friends anymore. The only friend she really got as close to besides Tanya is Daisy Arima, but she moved to another school two months after they initially met.

Sonya tries setting her up with girls. Yaz doesn’t even attend the dates. Najia tries getting contacts of people that Yaz has helped. Yaz never talks about her escapades as a police officer afterwards. 

She can’t wait to move out.

But while it’s great, because Tanya’s really the only friend she needs, and she visits Shoreditch every now and then, a little part in her knows that she needs another friend. Someone she can be tight-knit close to like Tanya. 

Then, she invites the Doctor for tea.

To be fair, the Doctor seems lonely. Yaz has looked into those hazel eyes long enough to get a sense that the Doctor is old, and that they must travelled for years. Yaz knows she, Ryan, and Graham aren’t the first humans to step inside the TARDIS. The Doctor has revealed in more than one occasion that she has a soft spot for Earth.

“Sonya?” her father calls out when he sees Yaz with the Doctor and Ryan. “Yaz has brought friends back!”

Sonya appears from the hallway. “What? You actually have friends?” She looks up to Ryan. “Is she paying you?”

Hours later, they’re at her mum’s job, the posh hotel that’s supposed to be opening soon, but then they’ve uncovered a nasty secret that involves abnormally large spiders that kill people to feed on.

Once they settle in an office to build up a plan to stop the spiders, Najia takes this opportunity to ask Yaz if she’s dating the Doctor. Her alien friend doesn’t seem to have an answer—must be a regeneration thing to forget human customs.

“We’re friends!” Yaz finally responds, and she isn’t lying. The Doctor is only her friend, and there’s nothing more to their relationship. It’s as simple as that.

 

* * *

  
  


The Doctor saves the day as per usual, and she heads for the TARDIS after saying her goodbyes.

But Yaz isn’t ready to let go of the universe.

So does Ryan and Graham.

 

* * *

  
  


Cool. She’s now PC Yasmin Khan, a legit time-traveller.

 

* * *

  
  


Yaz has seen so many things. She’s been through a junkyard planet, which lead to sonic mine, and she’s transported into a hospital spaceship. Also, she realises that she has attended her grandmother’s first wedding. 

There’s a retailer called Kerb!am, which is the largest in its galaxy. There’s mud-like alien species that’s been imprisoned in a tree acting as part of the security until the 17th century. She’s met King James I. 

The Solitract is a consciousness that she meets in Norway 2018. The Doctor says it was a story that one of her grandmothers told her so she could go to sleep, and having realised that it wasn’t a made-up story excited the Time Lord.

When she enters the Solitract plane, it’s a peaceful wonderland for Erik and his supposedly dead wife, Trine. Everything seems totally right, but Yaz knows there’s something incredibly wrong with this place.

Trine should be dead, first of all.

“Don’t you want to see your friends?” she asks.

The Doctor’s eyes furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“They got here when you did,” she explains, and then she looks out the window.

Yaz follows the Doctor as they head out to the backyard. There’s a line of laundry that’s drying, a breeze of wind making the damp clothes dry. Yaz sees two women talking to each other, but she can’t make out their faces.

As they got closer, the women’s whispers are louder. Yaz hears their voices, and they’re both too familiar. One more than the other.

She glances at Graham, who gives her the same look.

“I know that sound,” Graham says as he brushes the drying sheet.

When Yaz goes to accompany Graham, the two women stop whispering. 

The Doctor’s breath hitches. “Oh, that cannot be.”

Yaz feels a sting in her eyes, the same familiar kind of pain as she always felt years ago. She doesn’t freeze, no, but she walks towards the shorter woman who turns around with a smile in her face.

Like Trine, she should be dead as well.

“Hello, Yaz,” she says. “Long time no see.”

 

* * *

  
  


Clara Oswald is dead.

So how is she standing here, looking at the gardens, breathing in the air as if she’s actually alive?

“Yaz,” she says. 

Clara plucks a rose from the small patch of the garden. She holds it with two fingers, careful not to prick herself with the thorns on the stem.

Yaz can’t stand it. This woman looks so much like Clara, acts so much like Clara, smiles too much like Clara. She couldn’t let herself believe that Clara is actually here with her, in a small backyard that may come from an alternative universe.

“Yaz,” she says again. “I’m so happy you’ve found me.”

Yaz glances away from Clara. She couldn’t bear to look at her eyes anymore.

She’s moved on. She shouldn’t be looking at her own past anymore.

Clara is still persistent. Too stubborn, and so she sits down on the grass and pats the space beside her. Yaz refuses, and she returns a look at her.

“You did the exact same thing to me, and yet you cuddled me to sleep,” she says.

“It’s different now,” Yaz speaks for the first time. “You were still alive.”

“Why does me being dead change things? I’m here now,” Clara insists.

Yaz stomps her foot down. “That’s the thing. Clara wouldn’t say shit like that. She knows how hard dealing with death is like. You’re not her. Not at all.”

Clara sighs, and she tosses the rose aside. “Fine, fine. You’re right, She wouldn’t have.”

The woman stands up. “Have you opened the trunk I gave you?”

“I don’t have to answer that,” Yaz shoots back. “You’re not her.”

“So you didn’t open the trunk.”

Yaz keeps quiet. There’s a suffocating silence between them afterwards.

It isn’t fair to Yaz. Something in this universe is messing with her, fucking her mind using Clara as some kind of torture device. She hates it. 

Yaz has seen so much, maybe too much.

Clara’s imposter follows her as she’s pacing around the garden. The emotional baggage she kept inside is going to pop open at any moment, and she’s unpredictable.

But when Clara’s hand pats her shoulder, Yaz stops. She looks back at Clara, her heart bleeding in reopened sorrow.

“What do you want from me?!”

Clara shakes her head. She brushes aside several strands of Yaz’s hair, and she cups the teenager’s face with the same hand.

“Yaz, the trunk I gave you is everything that I’ve been through when I knew the Doctor,” Clara says. “You still found them anyway. You really didn’t my help in that, after all, didn’t you?”

Same person.

The man with tweed jackets and bowties. The woman who fell from the sky.

“Oh, and the new caretaker that came by for a couple of days? That was him as well.”

_ Half an hour ago, I was a whitehead Scotsman. _

Clara sees the realisation in Yaz’s face when it happens. She giggles, and then she presses a kiss on Yaz’s cheek.

“Tell you what,” Clara says. “The Doctor’s already figured out what’s going on here. She’s gonna tell you a cute story about it. I won’t exist much longer, so I’m going to give you advice as someone who travelled with her once upon a time.”

“Tell her,” she continues. “Tell her how much she means to you. It was already too late for me. But you have time. Go on. Tell the Doctor that you love her because I’m going to tell her right now. Unlike me, however, you still have a chance to be with her. I love you, Yasmin Khan. Extraordinary girl. You are one of the best things that has ever happened in my entire life.”

 

* * *

  
  


After Norway, and several other trips, the Doctor and Yaz are alone in the console room. Ryan and Graham spend some time in a leisure planet that the Doctor drops them off to.

The Doctor is too quiet. She’s busy tinkering with several faulty settings on the console, but she isn’t rambling off like she’s always doing.

Yaz doesn’t know much about the Doctor. She’s an alien who’s lived for thousands of years from what Clara in the Solitract plane has told her. Yaz thinks about the people the Doctor’s met, from the famous namedrops to other companions she’s had. 

She wonders how her life would’ve been like if she had talked with Bowtie more. If she’d never let them go during Christmas of 2013. Or if she could’ve just listened to her gut once and follow Mr. Smith around.

She knows the Doctor remembers her. There’s a thick air of awkwardness around them both. The Doctor looks at her differently, and she knows it’s her looking back to her younger self. There’s a solemn gaze in the Doctor’s eyes even as she’s fixing the console, and Yaz couldn’t bear the silence between them anymore.

_ Tell her how much she means to you.  _

“You could’ve told me that you knew Clara,” she says.

For one moment, Yaz thinks the Doctor is going to ignore her, but the alien is too sweet for that, especially when she’s around her. 

The Doctor sighs, and she lets go of the wires she was tugging at the moment. She slides from underneath the console, and she pushes herself up so she’s sitting upright. “You never really mentioned me. I thought you’d forgotten about Bowtie. Or the caretaker.”

Yaz chuckles weakly. “I couldn’t have forgotten those two. Maybe it took time, but I do remember them clearly. You could’ve helped me with that.”

“Did the Solitract ever tell you what happened?” the Doctor asks.

Yaz shakes her head. “I don’t understand your question.”

The Doctor bores her gaze into Yaz. Her eyes look a different kind; they’re gloomy, like the light has just snuffed out of the alien. She sighs.

“I think I should tell you what really happened,” the Doctor says, “about what really happened the night that Clara died.”

As the Doctor explains, Yaz understands. Clara and the Doctor had been trying to help a friend escape from death. As the time ticked by, Clara became reckless. Just as reckless as she was when Danny Pink died. Clara took the quantum shade for herself, and that set her up for her untimely death. The woman who was in charge with the shade couldn’t remove the shade, and so Clara accepted her death in a brave way.

“I could’ve done so many other things if I hadn’t left her to do that reckless decision,” says the Doctor. “She became too much like me.”

Yaz wipes the tear that builds up in the Doctor’s eyes. It comes to a realisation that it’s the first time Yaz has seen the Doctor actually cry. It’s beautiful in a sad, melancholic stance. Tears, they’re powerful.

“Doctor, no, you can’t blame yourself for what happened,” Yaz says. “I’ve blamed myself for so long. I thought that if I wasn’t sick, I would’ve asked her to stay, to watch a movie with me or something. You couldn’t have known that she was going to save Rigsy that way!”

The Doctor nods. “I know, I know. It’s just—this is the first I’ve talked about her since I got my memory of her back,” she says. “It’s a long story, really, but—”

The Doctor’s rambling is interrupted when a soft press of Yaz’s lips lands on her own in a chaste kiss. It leaves the Doctor stunned, and Yaz giggles in response.

“When the Solitract talked to me in Clara’s form, she told me to tell you,” says Yaz. “Tell you how much you mean to me. So I’m telling you now, Doctor—don’t be ridiculous. Let yourself breathe. I’ve seen glances when you think about the people you’ve lost. I’m telling you to celebrate the people that have lived because of you. Because of you, Doctor, my life is a lot better. Because of you, Doctor, I’ve learned to appreciate things about myself that I wouldn’t have years ago.”

Yaz squeezes the Doctor’s hands firmly with your own. “Doctor, I like you. I’ve been since that day when the giant spiders almost invaded the whole of Sheffield. You were going to leave and I wasn’t gonna have that. It wasn’t so much as seeing the universe as getting to be near to you, to have adventures with you.”

The Doctor is left speechless, so Yaz pulls her into another kiss, and instead of words, the Time Lords reciprocates her feelings when she kisses Yaz back harder.

When they’ve stopped, the Doctor and Yaz are in cloud nine. Yaz’s grip on the Doctor’s suspenders is wholesome, and the Doctor bites her swollen lip from Yaz’s barrage of teeth sinking into it.

“Yaz,” she says when she’s breathing again. It’s amazing how this human girl is able to leave her breathless. “I want to show you something.”

Yaz nods, letting go of the Doctor’s suspenders. The Time Lord twists and turns certain switches and levers of the console, and the TARDIS wheezes off.

 

* * *

  
  


They stop by a diner.

“A diner that’s sitting on an asteroid!” the Doctor says. “This is a very iconic diner across the entirety of the universe. Makes the best chips!”

“But why’s it look like an American diner?” Yaz asks.

The Doctor shrugs. “I guess the owners just like American diners.”

Yaz follows the Doctor as she opens the diner’s doors open. 

She expects a full house of aliens from different species barging in to get their orders, but surprisingly, the diner’s empty. Just empty space within the booths and the chairs. 

“We’re closed today!” a woman’s voice says.

“I think someone else is expecting me, though,” the Doctor replies.

A woman walks out from the kitchen. She looks like a young teenage girl, but she could be well over centuries old. A smile lights up her face as she looks at the Doctor.

“Oh, Doctor, I haven’t seen you in a while!” she says. “You must be Yasmin Khan.”

The Doctor nods. “She’s brilliant, isn’t she? We’re girlfriends now.”

The woman smiles. “She’ll be right with you in a moment. I’ll go make some chips.” She disappears into the kitchen. 

The Doctor walks and takes a seat on one of the taller stools. A smile so wide is spread across her face.

“What are you so secretive about, Doctor?” Yaz asks as she leans on the counter.

“Oh, my stars.”

The remark doesn’t come from the Doctor. She just breathes and gives her a smile, but it’s a different kind of smile. 

Yaz knows that voice. She knows it too well. But that’s also impossible. She’s already had to deal with an imposter.

Yet Yaz turns around.

“Yaz,” Clara says, “Yaz!”

Clara and Yaz both sprint up and wrap their arms around each other in a tight embrace. Yaz buries her head in Clara’s shoulder as the tears start to fall from her face.

 

* * *

  
  


The diner turns out to be a TARDIS that Clara steals after being extracted from her timeline. Her body is frozen in the sense that she’ll never die, but her heartbeat is stuck between. While she feels warm, feels human, feels  _ alive _ , she’ll never get her pulse back.

At some point, however, she’ll have to return to Gallifrey in order to return to her timeline, where she will die from the quantum shade again.

It’s all surreal. Daring her superior to give her a challenging task leads to space-time travel, and it leads her back to Clara. The woman she’s adored for years that she could be considered her own god.

They talk until Yaz feels tired, a little tipsy from the amount of champagne she’s drank, and Clara leads her to her TARDIS bedroom. 

It is exactly like their bedroom when they lived in Shoreditch. Still a cluttered mess of clothes, papers, and make-up, except there’s more alien tech scrambled on top of the cabinets.

“Did you know that I have three doctorates now?” says Clara as she leads Yaz to the familiar queen-sized bed. “English literature, Physics, and Musical Performance.”

Yaz laughs. She recalls a conversation they had one night; Clara dreamt that she was an English professor who ended up marrying Tessa Thompson of all people and solved the death of a former student.

“By the way, I did get an autograph from Tessa,” she adds. “Sorry, this TARDIS kinda makes it so we can hear each other’s thoughts. It’s usually turned off, but Me and the Doctor probably screwed with some of the settings.”

Through the haze of her intoxication, Yaz successfully shrugs her pyjamas on after Clara helps her undo her clothes until she’s in a bra and boxers. She snuggles underneath the floral duvet that she’s missed for years as Clara fixes to put her hair down.

“Doesn’t it seem tedious that we’re doing this again?” Yaz asks her.

Clara scoffs. “Never! I’ve missed you for too long.”

It hits Yaz. While Clara has only been gone for three years in her perspective, she has no idea how long it is for Clara.

“27 years,” Clara responds. “Sorry. It’s just—I’d never avoid you if I thought I had the chance to see you again. There’s rules whenever you time travel, even though I’ve already broken so many by simply existing.” She sighs. “I don’t want to break the space-time continuum. That’s the Doctor’s job.”

Yaz laughs. She shuffles closer to Clara, who’s finally lying on the bed, and she rests her head against part of Clara’s shoulder.

“I’ve missed you so much, Clara,” Yaz admits. “I can’t get angry at this, however. I get to see you again. Not many people have that chance with their loved ones.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you about what I’d been doing,” Clara says. “I just deemed it too dangerous for you to know about my travels. Did you ever open the trunk I gave you?”

Yaz shakes her head. “If I did, it meant that I truly accepted you were gone. Some part of me just wouldn’t give up.”

Clara smiles. “At some point, you should. There’s a bunch of selfies I took with the Doctor when they were a whitehead Scotsman.”

“He was just so cross for no absolute reason, wasn’t he?” Yaz chortles. “He and I had a lovely chat when he first arrived. I accused him of putting you in danger.”

“And now, you’re her girlfriend,” Clara chuckles. “She looks amazing, really. I don’t think I’d ever date her though. I’ll probably get cross if she keeps talking.”

“I’ve always been the more patient one.”

Clara lightly punches Yaz. “Don’t know why you’re always crushing on the daft ones.”

They fall in a fit of light laughter, and maybe a bit of a pillow fight as well. At some point, they’re tangled in an embrace, and Yaz is close to giving in to the tempting sleep.

Clara kisses the younger woman’s forehead as they both flutter their eyes close in a relieving sleep.

 

* * *

  
  


**Journal Entry #1245**

Everything seems to be in place. It’s all perfect now.

I’ve decided to stay with Clara for some time. The Doctor and I have agreed to meet at certain points until I’ll eventually have to return to the Doctor’s side.

I’m still not sure what to tell my family about this. I know at some point I’ll have to tell them about all the space-time travel. Clara does miss my mum.

Tanya must be wondering where I am as well. I’m updated with her on Snapchat streaks, Instagram posts, but I won’t be visiting Shoreditch in a long while. Clara says we’ll visit her one day.

Right now, I’m truly in cloud nine. I’ve got a cool girlfriend, made amazing friends, and my skills are challenged whenever I walk out those TARDIS doors. 

Plus, Clara Oswald returned from the dead. Maybe she is some kind of superhero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW. finished the day before i have to go back to school! sigh
> 
> I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED! pls comment because i think i'm making this into a series of works within this cute universe bc i love yaz and clara sm. they truly deserve better and that's the ending i gave them <3
> 
> (i cried while writing the last two parts. fluff makes me so emoTIONAL like i'm numb whenever i'm doing smut or angst, which is why you'll see i'm usually writing those types of fics instead)


End file.
